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Thursday, December 30, 2010

When It Rains, It Pours

I got a phone call from my mom this morning, wishing me a happy birthday and letting me know that she's in the hospital. Hold on, back up a second. What?!

My mom's husband failed a non-stress test before Christmas and the doctors saw an arrhythmia that showed up without any symptoms. They brought him back in yesterday for an ablation and while getting ready to do it, they triggered the arrhythmia again and had to use the defibrillator to stop it. He had surgery this morning to insert a pacemaker. This is a man who was perfectly healthy, not overweight, and had never had any heart problems in his life. Suddenly he is getting a pacemaker?!

My mom has been worried about him and worried about my grandmother, who was just hospitalized for several days with diverticulitis. After returning home, she blacked out in her bathroom and ended up in the hospital again with a concussion and 5 staples in her head. She's 84 years old and still is very, very independent. My mother lives just down the road and worries about her a lot though.

Last night, my mom woke up in the middle of the night with chest pains. She's only 53 years old. She's healthy, although she just had a full hysterectomy a few weeks ago. Today they admitted her to run a non-stress test and monitor her overnight. I don't think she can handle all of the stress right now. I am hoping that's all that this is... stress can cause chest pain, right?

All of this, out of the blue, all at once. It's too much to even wrap my brain around. I feel guilty for being 3,000 miles away at a time when my family needs me. Will update when I know more...

Update: They are both getting out of the hospital right now! My mom's husband is doing fine with the pacemaker and is headed home. My mom has more testing next week. I'm pretty sure she just is not handling the stress well. Hopefully that is all it is! Now, back to regularly scheduled programming...

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About Me

I'm a Christian mom, Army wife, and doula. I've had 6 children in 5 years including not one, but two, sets of identical twins. I'm an advocate for homebirth and I gave birth to my twin girls on the floor of my own bedroom. (View my homebirth story here. ) I just survived a long deployment and a cross-country move with sanity mostly intact.